43 CommentsBwog has received word that the QuAM balloons were just set free by “two masked men.” Get on it, Public Safety.
Update, 5:15 PM: Superior Inflatables Correspondent Jon Hill spoke to QuAM table staffers. The “masked students,” who “looked like undergrads,” fled in opposite directions. “They were pursued, but they were too fast.”
In addition, the balloons reportedly cost a good $400.
Photo by Arnold Park
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43 Comments
@... you know something is terribly wrong when you live in one of the most exciting places in the world, yet somehow the most exciting thing to happen all day is reading about a couple of childish, mildly homophobic, likely affluent and guaranteed to be painfully ordinary “pranksters” setting the gay balloons free.
@Confused since when do bullies curb stomp kids for ice cream? must be a rough neighborhood.
@First! FIRST!
@Sooo.... Any chance the Giant Inflatable Penis will come back this year?
@... the picture looks like a signal, like one that president bollinger would throw up in times of distress to summon everybody’s favorite superhero, the pink golfer.
@... of course the balloon scandal generates three times the bwog comments as the uigur leader’s visit.
@but of course the body of internet users has no interest in matters of consequence, but rather is only amused by utter balderash. you see, we are not a businessman on a distant planet.
@justice 1. i have no idea if it’s a hate crime, although it was clearly directed at a particular group (in this case, the Queer Alliance)
2. it’s inarguably douchebaggery, not just dastardly, and no funnier than a bully curb stomping a kid and taking his ice cream. if you do disruptive things that interfere with the actions of people in power who are oppressing you, it’s clever guerrilla warfare and you should be proud of yourselves. if you do it to disrupt an event organized by a group that’s often oppressed, you’re just a goddamned douche and there’s nothing to be proud of there. fact.
@i think you should... shut the f up
@ewww gross “clever guerilla warfare”?
“you should be proud of yourselves”?
yikes!
anyway whoever did this is a douche, regardless of their (unknowable) motive. that said, nobody in all of oz, no wizard that there is or was, is ever gonna bring those balloons down! and that’s awesome
@totally seconded
@American History X comparing balloon cutting to curb stomping and guerrilla warfare? Wow. And i doubt this was targeted. I bet that it was just 2 fuckin kids that wanted to pull off some childish prank. Bravo you dastardly masked crusaders of balloon justice.
@at least they felt the need to be masked when doing something homophobic at Columbia.
@thank you we tried to be sensitive.
@First... they came for the flashy rainbow balloons, but I did not speak out for I was not a flashy….
@and who wasn’t thinking about cutting those balloons free? it was so tempting.
@400? I need to get into the balloon arch making business if that cost $400 bucks.
@Igg The rare deed that can be accurately described as “dastardly”.
@Anonymous I’m just glad someone caught this on camera. I think this is really cool.
@in another interpretation Those balloons weren’t being cut – they were being set free, released from the shackles of a society and a university that ignores their needs and their rights. Perhaps the masked men were LGBT crusaders who feel that all colored balloons have a right to float to the altitude of their choosing.
Or maybe a couple of douchebags just thought it would be funny to cut the line on a couple hundred balloons.
@Anonymous Free the balloons! Every day millions of innocent balloons are harvested by corporate pigs, forcibly filled with gas until nearly bursting, and shackled in exposed places. I am not surprised that the balloons fled the scene after such mistreatment. Columbia needs to become a balloon safe space, then university would not be a target for BLF (Balloon Liberation Front) radicals, if not we may be witnessing ’68 all over again. I’m very disappointed that a “civil rights group” would not extend their ideology to their hot air filled fellows.
@stealing balloons? thats soooo gay
@Hah “Defying Gravity” is a particularly apt tag in this case.
@ahh they cut the balloons! I guess I can’t be gay anymore, damnit.
@no.. you were liberated from your earthly shackles and you’re now free to be free! The sky is unlimited, you’re floating on cloud nine, blue skies heading your way, space the final frontier etc etc.
@what did we ever do to you?
@ALERT Um, Bwog? Kelly Choi and Frank Bruni are at the J-School tonight…GET ON IT
@Sad It’s been too long since a James Franco post.
http://gawker.com/5372157/james-francos-next-role-is-on-general-hospitalno-for-real
@Wtf It kinda looks like a gay swimming sperm cell
@not actually a homophobe gay swimming sperm cell: the epitome of form over function.
@5 & 6 well done!
@Kanye yo guys who set the balloons free, i’m really happy for you, and i’mma letchu finish, but the Westboro Baptist Church are the best homophobes in the US
@I smell a hate crime.
@wait, really? or are you being facetious?
granted bwog doesn’t give a lot of context here but the freeing of balloons (even rainbow-colored ones, even for an explicitly gay event) does not a hate-crime make. granted the mask bit is pretty weird, but this still sounds resoundingly 4th-grade-prank-esque.
And like #12 says, the allusions to freedom/liberty/openness and other positive stuff from letting balloons sounds like the polar opposite of a hate crime
… a love crime?
@Anonymous *letting balloons go
@Actually it kind of is... Destruction of property pretty obviously targeted against a specific minority group? Sounds like a pretty textbook hate crime to me.
@I see what you're saying but, this isn’t really destruction in much of a traditional sense of the word. Yes, the end result is the same — the student group doesn’t have it’s (apparently expensive) property. But releasing balloons doesn’t have the same hate-crime-type malice or destructiveness that even popping the balloons would have.
Maybe the law supports your assertion — I’m not at all qualified to say — but viscerally, this does not feel like a hate crime.
@My visceral sensation is to feel that you seriously need a life. I would guess the law’s on my side.
@yeah... if you’re going to try to sound smart by using the word visceral (albeit in a very awkward/forced context), at least try to get the difference between “its” and “it’s”. thanks.
@you're so right... now that I know I can’t prove how smart I am by using the first 4-syllable word that comes into my head in my bwog comment – & proving my intelligence is of course the only reason I post on bwog (*albeit* a colossally douchey one) – I know now to just take a page out of your playbook, correcting syntax and reminding people of those pesky conjunction rules. That’ll show em how smart I am
@Surfin' UWS You should be hunting truffles with that snot.
@... wtf masked men?!
what about the environment??
@Ballon? What is a ballon? Also, check yo’ grammar.